


Return by the Date Due

by gisho



Series: Background Characters [2]
Category: Girl Genius
Genre: Mid-Canon, Shenanigans, Tarvek is a library geek, sturmhalten mechanicsburg paris, tarvek does not actually appear in this fic, the way of the smoke
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-09
Updated: 2018-10-09
Packaged: 2019-07-28 00:48:26
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,465
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16230752
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gisho/pseuds/gisho
Summary: Wherin several librarians decide, in trying circumstances, that certain books shouldn't be circulated to certain people.





	Return by the Date Due

\--

##### 626.7 VALO

Sturmhalten is a town people pass through. A port of call, not a home. There are more inn rooms and boarding rooms than houses; Miryam knows, because she went around the entire town with a planning map taking notes, in an attempt to prove a point about circulation to Pasha, and also to make a more or less definitive list of addresses at which getting mail was _not_ proof of residence. They lent to _residents_ , not people who were likely to float off to Bucharest and never actually give the books back. They'd lost so much of the collection that way.

For example, this slightly breathless red-haired woman in a Wulfenbach airman's uniform. "Look, it's no use pretending you don't have it," she's telling Pasha. "I talked to someone who read it here."

Pasha tells her implacably, "We only loan to residents, ma'am."

Interesting. Mostly they plead that they just want something to read overnight and they'll take very good care of it. The librarians stopped believing that one after the giant Heterodyne apparition and the monster invasion, though they used to stretch a point for Wulfenbach troops. Miryam sidles over, and pretends to start looking through the pencil drawer. 

The airman is clutching at the desk edge, white-knuckled. "What would I have to do," she says, "for you to let me take this book out?"

"Be a resident of Balan's Gap," Pasha drawls, bland and implacable. "We're the Municipal Library, not the Incorruptible Library." Miryam winces. That's not how he should have put it. 

And sure enough, the woman is already digging in her pocket, muttering, "If there's some kind, of deposit, I have -"

That's her cue. "Ma'am," she says, and leans over and gently shoves the woman back half a step. "We can't _loan_ you books, but you're welcome to read them in the library. And if you need something duplicated, we have an agreement with the Dockmaster's Office to use their polyscribe clank. Twenty pages per castlemark, nineteen hours notice." It was usually thirty-six, but she had a bad feeling about this woman. Better to get it over with. They weren't exactly swamped with orders.

They were never swamped. If it weren't for her thrice-gearstripped sense of _civic duty_ she'd be in Bucharest or Beetleburg, somewhere with no snow on the ground in May and more than twenty feet of Contemporary Biography. It was nice being able to pick up a new man every weekend, but she could do that in Bucharest if she found the right pubs. 

"Well," said the problem patron, eyebrows knitting, "why didn't you just say so?"

Pasha's smile is looking a little strained, but he knows how to do his job and let Miryam do hers. She has better aim. "I'll just check the catalog and make sure where we shelved it," he says, and Miryam lets him see her tugging the weapons drawer open. He turns away. " _Collected Experimental Notes of St. Valo_ , you said?"

"Volume Five." 

"Right, right, let me cross-reference."

If she were in Paris right now they'd have a proper catalogue clank to do the lookups instead of going through the little stacks of cards in wooden drawers by hand. Of course, if she were in Budapest right now Pasha would be facing down a problem patron who _didn't_ have a silence ray pointed at her chest. Dammit. 

There's no noise but the rustling of the indices for entirely too long. There's nobody else here. No browsers looking for a nice serial romance, no actual historians who for some reason want to use their pitiful pile of primary source originals. Just the three of them.

Pasha says, with only a little strain im his voice, "I'm afraid it's checked out, ma'am."

"You can't - _checked out?_ By _who_ exactly?"

"I'm afraid I can't tell you that. Patron privacy."

The airman's knuckles are white. The expression on her face is sliding toward _murderous_ , but she takes a deep breath. "Can you at least tell me when it's due back?"

"I can't tell you that either."

The problem patron goes still and tense. Miryam shifts the silencer a little higher.

But then the problem patron straightens up, scowling. " _Useless._ You're useless. I'm going to complain to the burghermaster." She spins on her heel and stomps out, leaving Pasha still wide-eyed with his hand on the catalogue drawer. 

Not until the door is swinging shut do they let themselves go limp. 

Pasha, in fact, collapses against the card catalogue, pressing the checkout record dramatically over his eyes. "Fuck," he announces. "Fuck fuck fuck fuck. Why do we get all the weirdos?"

"Because all the weirdos travel by airship." Sometimes she thinks they should start a branch at the docks. Stocking popular fiction and simplified science, with fees, with a full-price deposits. They'd have to convince all the innkeepers to accept returns. No, don't think about that now, it's too distracting a fantasy. Miryam wrenches her mind back to the present and sets the silence ray back down in its drawer. "Why wouldn't you tell her the due date? That's not confidential."

He holds out the checkout record. The due date is in July two years ago, and the name beside it reads 'T. Sturmvoraus'.

Oh.

"We're never getting it back," Pasha says. "It was probably destroyed when the castle blew up."

"You mean the tower. Just the one tower."

"That was plenty," Pasha mutters. He had the bad luck to be in the castle courtyard when it blew up. The mess afterward had left him more than usually shaken. "We should just mark it as lost. It's a pity. That one was practically unique."

Rare enough to be marked 'trusted borrowers only', which would have been enough all on its own to justify turning her away, but Miryam has a bad feeling that explaining that wouldn't have helped. She has a bad feeling about all of this, in fact. "No. Give me a pen."

She scribbles in a Return date in June, two days before the old Prince died, and then changes pens - details matter - to add a checkout date of, hmm. Who is she going to pin this on? Lady Selnikov, maybe, she's always in and out of town and it will at least give the people looking for St. Valo's experimental notes something to entertain them. Last week, then, and Miryam adds the 'M. Selnikov' with a flourish.

"What's that for?" Pasha's voice is low and hoarse, as if he were expecting something to be listening.

"Confusing people. I didn't like the look of that woman." She hesitates. "She had red hair, too."

"Ooooh. Family business?"

"Exactly."

"Are you really sure you should be altering circulation records, though? Prince Tarvek's been missing two years. I didn't say anything about that business with the interlibrary loan, I completely understand, the Incorruptible Library gets - tetchy." He'd better not say anything; the shell games Miryam had pulled to make it look like Tarvek's books had duly started back to Paris had left Pasha in possession of a first-edition Masat. "But this time it's just some relative of his."

"I'm sure." Miryam holds out the circulation record, and slowly, like a hypnotized rabbit, Pasha takes it.

\--

##### TQ591 V25

The request dropped into the slot like the small piece of paper that it was. It was picked up, and passed on, and not until it got as far as Senior Shelver Panais's desk did anyone notice the address.

She sets it on the table at the next morning's meeting, red-penned. The chief shelver picks it up and squints. "And why, exactly, should we deny this Marka Quellwolke a library card?"

"The address." Panais resists the urge to rub her temple; she forgot to get coffee on the way and the usual headache is starting to stab at her. "It's Lady Terebitha's."

That name makes Rene wince and hiss like someone in sudden pain, but the chief is impassive. "And that implies?"

"The entire household is barred with cause. We didn't want to risk our books anywhere _nearby_ after what happened."

"Which was? I don't remember a Terebithia on the Revoked With Extreme Prejudice list."

"Not her. Her grandson, Martellus von Blitzengaard." 

A few shelvers who hadn't remembered the name Terebithia remember that one. She can tell by the hisses. Even the chief shivers, but it's only for a moment, and then: "That was four years ago. It might be time to review the ban. This person - " a tap on the request form - "isn't called Von Blitzengaard, and we wouldn't want to ban some innocent valet."

"Even if von Blitzengaard is using them as an intermediary?" Her headache is in full swing now; Panais gives up and presses a hand over her eyes. 

To her amazement, Rene pipes up, "You weren't there. I was. I got to explain the toothmarks on the Queen's Atlas to the restoration department."

"Hm," the chief says, and stares into space for a few seconds, and then allows: "Alright. But I'm putting the request in abeyance for now. Panais, you go up and investigate. Talk to this Marka if you can."

\--

It's been most of two months since Panais was above ground; she does like to nip up for walks along the Seine sometimes, but only couriers have to go to Paris in the daily course of their duties, and it gets so busy. Time in the Library is an abstraction. Above ground the last dregs of summer are dripping out of the city, and the streets are only half-full of slow-moving pedestrians, relaxing while they can. The trees are thick and green.

At Lady Terebithia's mansion she heads to the tradesman's entrance to spare argument. They leave her waiting in an alcove for most of ten minutes before producing Marka Quellwolke, who turns out to have a wild sweep of red hair and the expression of a woman about to punch someone. "Why can't you issue me a library card," she says, without making it a question.

This part isn't within her remit, but she looked it up. It needs to be said. "I'm afraid the entire household is banned, ma'am, at least until the outstanding fines are cleared."

" _What_ outstanding fines? I've never had a card before."

"No, but Martellus von Blitzengaard did. This is his last known address."

"Martellus." The scowl shifts half an eyebrow toward incredulity. "He hasn't been here for two years."

Panais takes a deep breath. "Well, do you know somewhere else we can reach him? To discuss the repair charges?"

Marka crosses her arms. "You're welcome to try," she says, "but he's in Mechanicsburg. Nobody's talking to him anytime soon. Look, why ban all of us over _his_ fines? Can we get that cleared up somehow if we prove he's gone?"

This isn't a _satisfying_ moment, exactly, but it's one Panait can't help but feel a little smug about. She practiced it before she came up here. She reaches into the bookpocket of her vest, and flips the bill into view, spinning it between her fingers to make the loudest possible noise as it hits the table between them.

Marka unfolds it.

Marka, apparently, is the kind of person who simmers constantly with anger without ever boiling over. She folds it back up equally carefully and makes it vanish. Panais can't tell where to, even watching her hands. "I'll get back to you later," she says. "I think the lady of the house needs to see this."

\--

Around eight in the evening Rene brings her dinner at her desk, which is her usual cue to stop working and drop her notes in the reconciler clank. Tonight it's quiche with mushrooms. Someone in the canteen must be on a local-produce kick again. At least they're not glowing. Rene pulls up the visitor chair and Panais fetches the wine from her bottom drawer, and they get through most of the first slice in companionable silence before Rene asks, "How did the card visit go?"

"Somehow I don't think we'll be couriering them Saint Valo's notebook any time soon."

"That's about - did you say Saint Valo?"

"Yes."

Rene sets the wineglass down with exaggerated care. "We got a note with the last shipment from Sturmhalten Municipal. Suspicious character asking for their copy of Saint Valo's experimental notes, volume five."

Panait considers this. Swirls her wine. "Was there a description of the suspicious character?"

"Medium height, female, pale skin and red hair, dressed as a Wulfenbach airman."

"Funny, I talked to a red-haired woman trying to get a library card today." Panait drums her fingers on the wineglass, which is a bad habit and she really should give it up before she accidentally drums her fingers on an inkpad and smears it all over a return. "Smoke Knights use disguises. Maybe we should move the notes to the vault."

"Smoke Knights are still allowed to do research," Rene points out, raising an eyebrow. "We don't censor."

"No, but maybe we should only let the notes out in facsimile. It's not like there are copies on every newsstand." She gulps the last swig of wine. "Come on, let's check who else we should warn."

\--

"Look at it this way," Rene offered. "At least we know for sure no one's going to steal the original manuscript."

"Because someone already stole it. I can't believe they just - handed it over. To a Jägermonster."

"In return for making copies first. I guess you have to pick your battles."

And there's at least one good thing to be said for the library in the heart of Castle Heterodyne, the one spoken of in awed whispers, full of books written by crazed wizards to tell unspeakable secrets, the one guarded by the very stone walls of the building, the one currently in a bubble of frozen time. Whatever is in there is very, very safe. Whatever nefarious plans the Smoke Knights have that need the fifth volume of Valo's notes, they won't get their hands on the manuscript copy.

\--

##### 1833, Mechanical, Spoils, Valo

_"Excellent vork." Saturn beamed, in that all-too-hearty way Ivo was still trying to get used to. "Did the Deep Librarians give hyu much trouble?"_

_"Vos tricky, but Hy gots it in de end." It's not technically a lie. He just has to make sure his brothers never, ever find out he raided a library by asking nicely. "Vot do hyu need Valo's notes fur ennyvay, master?"_

_Somehow, impossibly, Saturn's grin only gets wider. "Becauze Hy can improve on hiz flyveel system. Hev hyu ever been un a train?"_

_"Uv cawz not." Nobody would let Jägerkin on one, even if they wanted to go one of the two or three places trains went. But Ivo has a feeling he's about to get a ride._

\--

**Author's Note:**

> I think trying to assign Dewey Decimal and Library of Congress numbers for 'Sparkwork, mechanical' is the nerdiest thing I've done in service of a fic. In real life both 626 and TQ are unassigned.


End file.
